Last night Kate won MasterChef 2011, however her victory has been overshadowed by public outrage at Channel 10’s insanely stupid decision to broadcast the three-hour finale as two separate episodes, bookending the network’s struggling DIY reality show The Renovators.
During a Channel 10 brainstorm session, some daredevil ideas person came up with the concept of performing a broadcasting vivisection on the MasterChef finale by interrupting it with an hour of The Renovators. The theory here was obviously to prolong MasterChef for as long as possible while simultaneously propping up their under-performing new show by letting it piggyback on MC’s ratings. Unfortunately real people aren’t quite as stupid as television executives think, and now Channel 10 is being severely castigated by pissed off viewers who recognise a blatant ratings-grab when they see it.
Here are some of the scathing tweets from pissed off viewers…
According to Mumbrella, the MasterChef finale had a peak audience of 2.78 million viewers last night – down more than 30% from last year’s peak viewers. We don’t know if that is because of The Renovators gaffe, or if it’s simply an indication that the Australian public has lost a little love for MC.
Meanwhile, The Renovators received its best ratings yet. Go figure.
